Lilith: Daughter Of Paradise

Chapter One

"Lilith... Lilith...."

Said a voice drifting on a breeze over to where Lilith lay on the ground napping. She blinked away the sleep from her eyes. Sunlight dappled through the apples and tree limbs hanging above her head upon her face.

She listened, intent and curious to the call of her name from somewhere, coming closer...

Adam came to stand over her, his hands on his narrow hips.

He was growing taller every day now. Dark tendrils of his hair hung around his forehead in front of his pale eyes. And the flower wreathe she'd made for him dangled around his neck.

Her own wreathe – the one he had made for her – was now tangled within the curls of her long auburn hair.

Lilith couldn't contain her smile when she saw him. It had been him since the beginning – the sole other human she knew apart from herself.

Adam reached his hand for her to take, and drawing her up. Lilith followed him, running and leaping over the terrain. Land was unbound to explore in Eden.

They made it to the cliffs and neared the edge to peer down at the waves clashing against jagged rocks below.

Lilith gasped, delighted. They communicated through hand gestures and the emotions on their faces, and through their thoughts.

Taking Adam's hand, they backed up a few paces then sprinted forward and went plunging off the cliff, into the waves below.

They plummeted into the dark depths. Cold water enveloped Lilith, piercing her skin. She lost hold of Adam, blindly and frantically felt around the water for him.

He swam up to her; she latched her arms around his shoulders, and they came back up together, bursting through the surface.

Lilith reached up and pulled the mop of hair out of her face to see Adam laughing at her.

He avoided her clumsy swipes to dive below again.

They stepped dripping wet on the shores, sliding onto its sand to dry, the waves brushing up against the soles of their feet. The day was balmy and the sky was covered in grey clouds.

Lilith gathered her crumpled hair and squeezed the water out of it.

She paused, suddenly, perking up her head. She nudged Adam's shoulder where he lay on his stomach in the sand. He sat up, his dark curls dripping with sea water.

He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, What?

Lilith started up, gathering quickly to her feet and started moving in the direction the voice came from; she beckoned Adam to follow.

They roamed about Eden, over hillsides, and strayed from the forests – as they were dark and harder to see and travel within.

They came to an empty field of tall grass and nowhere else in sight, except a massive tree at a faraway distance, growing in the midst of everything.

Lilith gasped, pointing to the spreading canopy of its myriad of branches, covering the atmosphere.

The heavens shifted with various colors, lighting up with flashes of thunder.

The Tree's thick roots rose out of the ground like bridges, extending all the way to where Lilith and Adam stood.

Adam took off in a race, leaping from root to root, charging for the Tree.

Lilith balanced herself, laughing as she ran across the bridges of roots.

She left the race unfinished, too caught up in wonder the closer she came to the mystical tree. She saw how different animals and reptiles and birds were congregating around its massive trunk and licking of its bark.

Lilith circled the tree – it was so thick, there seemed to be no way around it.

She stumbled to a halt, gasping at the sight of the horned being seated beneath its branches.